Still more children's books? Really?

We seem not to have commented on The Mysterious Benedict Society series by Trenton Lee Stewart - I think I only read two of the three, but they were wonderfully fresh, funny, and extremely clever.  So I just saw The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict on the new books section of one of the best city libraries in the world, our own Cincinnati Public Library!  Well, this "prequel" is not so delightfully new, but, like a second trip to Italy, it's familiar and satisfying, while still offering pleasurable new discoveries.

On a completely different tack, I greatly enjoyed The Midnight Folk by John Masefield, former Poet Laureate of England (1930-67):

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a gray mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking.

The Midnight Folk tells the story of Kay Harker, a seven year old boy who seeks to recover a treasure stolen from his grandfather, to whom it had been entrusted. Kay is opposed by a coven of witches who are also seeking the treasure. One (big Spoiler!) is his governess! Kay finds clues through dreams that seem real and leave tangible residues upon waking. He is also befriended and aided by many talking animals, mermaids, and remarkable characters. One such is the fox, Rollicum Bitem, shown in the Folio edition picture above

I crept out of covert and what did I see?
Ow-ow-ow-diddle-ow!
But seven fat bunnies, each waiting for me.
With a poacher's noosey, catch the fat goosey,
Ho says Rollicum Bitem.

Really it's like a delightful mixture of Wind In the Willows, Treasure Island, and Fairy Tales. Quite charming!

Cake in the Hatbox

All of the Upfield Napoleon Bonaparte mysteries are a pleasure to read, and Cake in the Hatbox is one of the best.  Bony happens to be in northwestern Australia when a local policemen is found murdered and so he is naturally called upon to lead the investigation.  Officer Stenhouse, a hard, brutal man, appears to have been shot with his own rifle, by his aborigine tracker, who has disappeared, but Bony rapidly determines that the murder scene has been staged.  Discovering the real scene of the murder, the motive, and the culprits requires all of Bony's keen intelligence and considerable skills as a tracker.  Early on he realizes, even before locating the body, that the aborigine tracker also has been killed, putting Bony immediately into conflict with the tracker's tribe, who are relentless in attempting to identify the murderer and avenge the tracker's death.  Key to the mystery are the Breens,  a rough and fiercely independent family - three giant and immensely strong brothers and their beautiful, iron-willed sister, the baker responsible for the literal "Cake in the Box" and the figurative "Cake in the Box" - mini-mysteries that are delightfully revealed as Bony solves the murders, with an exceptional ability to strike a balance between what is legally required and what is just.  

The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power

The fourth volume in the ongoing, detailed, yet completely absorbing biography of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro was published recently. Caro is a titan of biography: his research is exhaustive, based on hundreds of interviews, examination of all relevant documents, and even substantial time living in places where Johnson spent formative periods. Caro famously spent more years writing Johnson volume III, than Johnson spent living it! Yet reading his prose is effortless - logically organized and lively, it's more like a yarn than a history.

Caro originally conceived this biography as three books - now four are out, with numbers five or, even, six in the works. I used to say that I hoped Caro (now 77) would live long enough to finish the series. Now I say that I hope I live long enough to finish reading the series!

Caro's invariable subject is power. His first book, The Power Broker, about Robert Moses, was a detailed study of the most powerful man in New York State for several decades. And power is the explicit subject of the Johnson series. The third volume, Master of the Senate, spent ~150 pages describing the history of the US Senate, convincingly demonstrating how the dictates of the Constitution, the historical traditions of the Senate, and the powerful and monolithic Southern Bloc of Senators made it impossible for any single man to wield power in that body - all to set the stage for the astonishing consolidation, almost creation, of power by the junior Senator from Texas. Johnson himself is quoted saying,

I do understand power, whatever else may be said about me. I know where to look for it, and how to use it."

The Passage of Power describes a new chapter in Johnson's search for power, describing how he failed to capture the Democratic Presidential nomination for the 1960 election and then decided to accept the Vice-Presidential nomination, strongly against the advice of his best friends and advisors, who argued forcefully that the Vice Presidency is a ludicrous, powerless office. Johnson believed he could alter that situation, telling one friend, "Power is where power goes." But he was wrong. He had misread and badly underestimated Jack Kennedy, who sidelined him completely. Johnson was regarded by the Kennedy inner circle ("the Harvards", as he called them) as a rube ("Uncle Cornpone" or "Rufus") and was personally snubbed and administratively excluded. In the absence of any meaningful role, with no opportunity to groom himself to replace Kennedy at the conclusion of his term, Johnson literally wasted away, physically and mentally.

The gripping part of this volume is the shocking assassination of Kennedy and the immediate transformation in Johnson; he came alive, overcoming enormous obstacles, to seize the reins of power and wield them with astonishing effectiveness. For example, the description of how he managed to steer a civil rights act through Congress is exceptionally impressive. Caro lauds Johnson's achievement in the highest terms:

The 1965 Act would be passed after another titanic struggle, in which, with men and women (and children, many children) being beaten in Selma on their way to the Edmund Pettus Bridge, singing "We Shall Overcome" as they marched into tear gas and billy clubs and bullwhips, Lyndon Johnson went before Congress and said, "We Shall Overcome," thereby adopting the cicil rights rallying cry as his own. (When Martin Luther King, watching the speech on television in Selma, heard Johnson say that, he began to cry - the first time his assistants had ever seen him cry). ..... To bring black Americans more fully into the political system, he had to break the power of the South in the Senate - and he broke it. It was Abraham Lincoln who "struck off the chains of black Americans," I have written, "but it was Lyndon Johnson who led them into voting booths, closed democracy's sacred curtain behind them, placed their hands upon the lever that gave them a hold on their owndestiny, made them, at last and forever, a true part of American political life." How true a part? Forty-three years later, a mere blink in history's eye, a black American, Barack Obama, was sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office.

For me, this book provided new insight into Jack and Robert Kennedy, the incomparable speechwriter and Kennedy accolyte Ted Sorenson, and, through the masterful protrayal of the strengths and weaknesses of LBJ, new insights into the character of men.

The Long Fall

I previously reviewed a Walter Mosley Leonid McGill mystery entitled The Thrill is Gone. This one, the first in the Leonid McGill series, is also set in New York and again involves the hard, street-savvy McGill sorting out the complex and sordid story that lies behind the sanitized assignment he accepts from a lawyer acting on behalf of an undisclosed client. When, however, McGill discovers that the "missing persons" he has located are being murdered in succession, he takes a deeper and more perilous interest in the case. As always, Mosley offers sharp dialog, interesting human interactions and a window into the cynical and tough-guy side of New York City. For me, though, the earlier Mosleys - written before 2000, say - are still the best.

The Mill on the Floss

George Eliot's books are highly intelligent and rewardingly insightful - the scope of setting and action is intentionally narrow, with a corresponding intensity of examination - like focusing sunlight with a magnifying glass so tightly that the spot bursts into flame. This book describes the Tulliver Family, centering on brother and sister Maggie and Tom, as they grow from childhood to young adults. The Tullivers have lived for generations as owners of a mill on the River Floss, near the larger city of St. Oggs (both fictional). The heart of the book is the troubled relationship between Maggie and Tom, made inevitable by the important difference in their characters. Tom has a strong moral sense and an unwavering confidence in the correctness of his judgments. Maggie is a sensitive and caring person, quick to empathize with others, but prone to impulsiveness that invariably leads her into troubles.

But if Tom had told his strongest feeling at that moment, he would have said, "I'd do just the same again." That was his usual mode of viewing his past actions; whereas Maggie was always wishing she had done something different.

Imprudent legal actions by Mr. Tulliver lead disastrously to bankruptcy and disgrace. Tom responds with courage and purpose, eventually paying the debts and restoring the family's honor. With the best of motives and honor, Maggie is nevertheless drawn into two conflicting romantic situations, causing a decisive break with Tom, who cuts her completely. Maggie remains devoted to Tom, however, and the book concludes with an emotional reconciliation between the two.

The preface of my edition (another beautiful Folio) states that this is Eliot's most autobiographical book - reflecting her estrangement from her own family and especially her brother, which resulted from her unconventional and socially unacceptable relationship with a married man. The book is deeply absorbing, with detailed and thoughtful exploration of relationships, with moving descriptions of powerful consequences resulting from small choices, and with a variety of strong characters - some good, some weak, some generous and some selfish - but every one convincingly and sympathetically rendered. Very highly recommended!